


Black Redemption

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-03
Updated: 2006-04-03
Packaged: 2019-01-19 17:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12414891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: The destruction of the brotherly love is an awful thing.[Written for Scivenshaft V]





	Black Redemption

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

** Black Redemption **

  
  
  


Had I but known my eleventh birthday would be my brother’s renouncement, I think I would have asked for the day to be missed. I would have filled in an application form and requested that the year just skip August 25th. Just have the days slide from the 24th to the 26th. As it happened, my eleventh birthday did arrive, and with it my brother did depart.

  
  
  


Making my way downstairs and into the kitchen on the morning of the 25th, I am greeted by my mother’s furious glare. I find myself trapped at the breakfast table with Mother cross-examining me. Doesn’t she realise that even if I did know his location, I still wouldn’t rat him out? He’s my big brother and no amount of my mothers relentless screeching was going to change the fact that little brothers just don’t rat on big brothers. It’s in the law somewhere. 

  
  


She’s a chilling woman, my mother. I would have high-tailed it out of here too if it was me she was livid with.  Silently, while she rages on, I start to ponder about where he did run off to. I think he would have made for the orchard. There’s a white brick wall down the back which borders onto the neighbouring muggle home. Mother hardly goes down there, reckons she has better things to do than be contaminated by their filth. She doesn’t want to get too close, nor should any Black. 

  
  


There’s a sudden drop in volume which makes me look up at her. She’s not yelling anymore; instead she’s taken to muttering dark curse words under her breath. I can see her left hand flexing slowly while her right grips her wand with malice. “Are you sure?” Mother asks me, her voice soft but laced with repressed spite. “You have no idea?”

  
  


I swallow my mouthful of breakfast and meet her eyes, shaking my head negative. This does nothing to improve her ominous mood.

  
  


She speaks slower this time. “Sirius needs to be punished, Son. He has brought shame to our family. Tell me, do you know where he is?” 

  
  


Still she fixes her glare on me. Does she not understand the code of two brothers? I can’t say where I imagine he might be. I know I will disappoint her by not saying. I know she will think that Sirius may have got to me, that his unfamiliar ways have started influencing me. I know that when I tell her ‘no,’ she and my father will increase their efforts in teaching me _their_ way. The right way. The Slytherin way.

  
  


 I know that, yet still I say it: “I know nothing, Mother.”

  
  


I watch with an odd detachment as her rage explodes and her hate for her first born son erupts. She slams her hands down on the table in front of me; the second son, the better son. Her eyes are alive with fury and her breaths are deep and quick. She looks at me with ferocity. I look at her with carefully concealed features, something I learned from Sirius. Finally, after what seems an eternity, she speaks. She asks, one last, final time, and still I say nothing to give away my brother. She breaks and storms off to the drawing room and to the dark devices which reside there, hoping that they will help her locate and harm her eldest child.

  
  


I finish my breakfast in silence and leave the kitchen in search of Sirius. As I suspected he is seated on the low white brick wall, behind the orchard, looking out over the neighbouring muggle property. Walking over, I stand slightly behind him. Only dirty, unkempt children sat on muggle walls. I look at him and curiously wonder what has happened to the boy who was once proud to be from a distinguished, Pure- blooded family such as ours. The boy who always stood straight-backed and held his head high.

  
  


He catches my eye, a sombre look etched on his face. He says nothing but questions me silently.   
  


“She’s wreaking havoc on the drawing room,” I tell him, and pause before continuing. “What are you going to do?”

  
  


He laughs gravely before jumping down from the wall to stand in front of me. At sixteen years he towers over me, forcing me to look upwards.  
  


“I’m out of here,” he spits and kicks the wall. “I’m fucking sick of it! Of everything! She’s so fucking fixed in this bloody Pure-blood mania, it’s disgusting!” His fists are clenched in anger and I’m briefly reminded of my mother. Sirius rages for a few more moments before adding, “I’m going to the Potters. James reckons his parents won’t mind.”

  
  


I jolt. Leave? He can’t leave, can’t abandon me, his brother! I need him here. I’m starting Hogwarts in a month - he promised to help me out with everything. I narrowed my eyes and balled my fists, staring determinedly at spot of earth somewhere near Sirius’s left foot. We’re _brothers_. We’re suppose to look out for each other, he’s not suppose to discard me, his brother, his family, for…for someone else, for the Potters!

  
  


We stand in silence. His anger at our parents eating at him. My resentment at my bother eating at me. I take a breath and lock my gaze on his, masking my emotions. 

  
  


“If you leave they’ll disown you.” He nods understanding, and I catch a hint of sadness dance across his expression before he conceals it. “They will no longer call you son,” I try again. “And I will no longer call you brother.” 

  
  


This time he doesn’t bother trying to hide the dejection, and I feel better knowing that I caused that, that I can hurt him too. 

  
  


He reaches his arm towards me, but I step away. He tries to explain, “I can’t live here and pretend I agree with their Pure-blooded ways – I can’t! We’re still brothers, my leaving won’t change that, I promise.” More lies, I refuse to listen and start to back away. 

  
  


“No Sirius, everything will change.” 

  
  


We both know what I say is true. Sirius leaving will result in his being disowned. It will result in my parent’s anger. It will result in me becoming the Black family heir. I will have to shoulder the responsibility of the family. I’m only eleven. It’s too much! I turn back towards the house, turn away from my brother and his foreign ways, and walk steadily back towards the house. Back to what’s familiar, back to my parent’s ways. 

  
  


“Crows everywhere are equally black, Regulus.” I pause and look back. He stares back at me, shoulders slumped, looking nothing like the heroic brother he used to be to me. “Blood doesn’t matter, we’re no better than them. Just…just remember that, alright? They’ll tell you otherwise, but …just remember.”

  
  


“I’ll cover for you, give you time to go,” I offer simply. He nods with understanding and I continue on, knowing it will never be proper for us to speak again.

 

 

 

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

  
  


The night is dark, still, and damp. The woods shelter us, giving us the privacy required. Beside me stand four others, four more of his servants. We form a circle, in the middle of which are three forms, three victims, one has already been drained of life. Their wands lay at Travers’ feet. Lestrange steps forward in triumphant manner, wand raised. The two remaining victims don’t cower, instead they stand tall and proud. 

  
  


In a moment of impassiveness, I admire that. I admire that they will die proud, knowing that they haven’t succumbed to darker powers. Knowing that they died for what they believed in. If I was to die this instant, this night, I don’t think I’d be able to do the same. I don’t take pride in what I do like I once did. I take no satisfaction in the murders I commit, and I think it shows. I think the Dark Lord knows this, I think the people I call friends do too. They stand here with sneers on their faces, their features aglow with the thrill. They know my loyalty is wavering. That is why I stand me along side them tonight, to test my allegiance to the Dark Lord. 

  
  


The Death Eater to my left, Rodolphus Lestrange, taunts them. “Won’t you beg us? Won’t you ask us to spare your pathetic lives?” 

  
  


The victims, the McKinnons, say nothing. They don’t lower themselves to responding.

  
  


“No?” Lestrange says mockingly at the McKinnons. Behind them, Peter Pettigrew aims his wand and John McKinnon dies promptly, leaving his sister Marlene alone. Her death will be much more painful. She supports Dumbledore, she works for the Order, and she will be tortured. So I raise my wand, casting the Cruciatus Curse, watching as she shrieks and cries in pain. The others approve and the taunts and heckling continue into the night. I feel sick and my brother’s words begin to sound in my head, words from long ago, words which I now see as the truth. 

  
  


I look at Peter Pettigrew, the one my brother calls friend, the one he should call foe. Their friendship makes me apprehensive. Pettigrew is in the perfect position to act should the Dark Lord see him as a threat. He watches in delight as death comes for the final McKinnon. I don’t watch: I’ve seen enough deaths. And after tonight, when I turn, I’m going for His Horcrux, and I know my end will follow soon after.

  
  


Bellatrix raises the Dark Mark, and we apparate to separate destinations. Pettigrew will apparate to his mother’s house. Travers will return to his, and Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange will report to the Dark Lord. They assume I will also return home. I turn and apparate watching the sinister shadows of the woods fall away. Behind me, a sheer cliff raises from the ground and the ocean rushes forward greeting before me, stretching out to the darkened horizon. I take in my new surroundings, my eyes seeking out the entrance to the hidden cave.

  
  


I smile taking a moment to fully appreciate what I’m about to do. Tonight, the Dark Lord will lose a piece of his soul, and perhaps, if I’m fortunate, I will salvage mine.

  
  


  
  



End file.
